


A Ghost at the Back of Your Closet

by buckysbears (DrZebra)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Discussions about trauma, F/M, The Framework, Trauma, and maybe thats okay, but he's still not her fitz, in which framework fitz is not a total douche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrZebra/pseuds/buckysbears
Summary: In which Framework!Fitz is confused about her motivations, and Jemma is trying, really, she is, but her body is still operating like it thinks he's the enemy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> my most written genre: jemma talking about her traumas  
> which seems to be the only time i dip my toes in fs but here we are 
> 
> cw for a mention of childhood abuse

“I need a shower,” Daisy groans out, rubbing her hands down her face. She flops back on the seedy motel bed, eyes pointed toward the white, popcorn ceiling in a withering stare. “Why do I even need a shower? We’re in the fucking Matrix, none of this is real. Yet still, I smell. It’s completely unfair.”

Jemma sits at the foot of the bed, inspecting the map they’ve drawn on the wall (it’s not like it’ll matter, once they shut the framework down. What’s a little destruction of private property in the grade scheme of things?). Each of the team’s locations are marked with pushpins, along with lists of all the information they’ve managed to gather on them. It’s not enough, Jemma knows. They need more.

“You do smell a little.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Daisy whines.

Jemma turns back to her, blinking innocently. “What? I said ‘a little’.”

“Whatever.” Daisy pushes off the bed, walks backwards toward the bathroom. She raises an eyebrow at Fitz, who’s sitting on the other bed. “You two gonna be okay without adult supervision for a little while?”

Jemma freezes. She and Fitz, this Fitz—Leo, he’s called here, though she refuses to call him that, even in her head—haven’t been alone together since they finally managed to convince him to come along. She knows what Daisy’s implying, and Jemma wishes she wouldn’t. She’s more than a little uncomfortable with the idea. This isn’t Fitz. Her Fitz. That’s what she tells herself is the problem, anyway.

“Yeah- uh- yeah, we’ll be fine,” Fitz says when she doesn’t speak, when it’s gotten just a little uncomfortable.

Daisy eyes them both, then holds up her hands, retreating to the bathroom.

Jemma doesn’t turn around to look at him. She knows what she’ll see. He’ll be sitting there, looking so much like Fitz but so not, so, so out of place in his posh suit and scarf. Looking like a person who would never set foot in a motel of all places, which he’d voiced when they’d arrived. He’s close, but he’s not Fitz. So she doesn’t look.

Plus, he might be looking back at her. She doesn’t know exactly why, but that’s the last thing she wants.

So she just focuses on the work in front of her. Not that she’ll figure out anything new just by staring at the same slips of paper they have been for the last two days, but still. The effort matters.

He waits until the water is running in the shower before he speaks. His presence alone is stifling, but his voice is something even more jarring.

“Why do you want me back?” he asks, and of all things it’s not what she expected. It confuses her enough that she looks back at him. He’s watching her carefully, thoughtfully, not really looking at her eyes but lower on her face, and it’s so Fitz-like that she wants to cry.

“What?”

“I- _He_ \- obviously wasn’t very good to you. Why do you even want him back?”

Her eyebrows draw together, mouth popping open in confusion. “Where are you getting that? Fitz is never anything but good to me.”

“You flinch.”

The accusation itself, the fact that he noticed, ironically, irrationally, makes her flinch. She kind of hates herself for it. She shakes her head, trying to pull herself together. She knows exactly what he’s talking about, but still she says, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The first time we met, I thought you wanted an autograph—I moved at you too quickly and you flinched back from me. At the diner, I grabbed the salt that was next to you, and you pulled your hand away so fast you almost hit yourself. And here, now, when we’re walking, anytime, you keep this distance between us. You won’t let me within a yard of you. You tell me I was your boyfriend, but—” He shakes his head. “You’re certainly not acting like I was a good one.”

She sighs, angling away from him. The bluntness isn’t entirely out of character. Fitz never hesitated to speak his mind with her, though he had somewhat softened in his approach after they’d gotten together. So it’s not that that’s bothering her. And even- It’s not concern, exactly. She doesn’t think this Fitz is attached enough to her to be concerned. But his genuine bafflement at her motivations. It aches something deep inside her. Something screaming that this is _wrong_. It’s that he doesn’t know, maybe. That he thinks himself capable of the kind of cruelty he’s insinuating.

“It’s not what you think,” she says softly.

“Then explain it to me.”

She still doesn’t turn back to face him. She’s not sure she can do this, if she has to look at him. If she just hears his voice she can pretend it’s Fitz. The one she knows and loves. And not- not _him_. The one who isn’t exactly right, and isn’t trying to be, either.

“Fitz would never hurt me,” she tells him. “And he- he said as much. But then he did. Or- Not him. Um. Someone who looked like him.”

He groans. “Please don’t tell me I have an evil twin running around out there.”

She almost smiles. “No.”

“Oh, good. That would just be bonkers.” He waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. “Well? Go on. Who was it then?”

“Well. Fitz, along with most of our team, got replaced.”

“Replaced?”

“Androids.”

He scoffs, and she turns to glare at him. Quickly, he holds up a hand. “No, no, sorry, I’m listening. Androids, right. Same guy who made the framework?”

“One and the same.”

She pretends not to hear the “’cause that’s not bloody ridiculous” under his breath. He waves her on.

“Right. Well. Fitz got replaced, but I didn’t know it at first. I thought we were both safe. We were alone together. And then … then I realized what he was. But he—it—promised. Promised that even if he was, he could never hurt me.”

“And then he did,” Fitz interrupts.

Tears fill her eyes, unbidden. Her throat feels thick, strained when she says, “And then he did.”

“What—” He pauses, raising a hand to scratch at his chin in a familiar gesture that makes her heart constrict painfully. “What did he do?”

She figures she’ll end up telling Fitz eventually. And it’s almost easier telling this version—this version who doesn’t really know her, isn’t at a level of caring that her Fitz is. Her Fitz, who would certainly be broken by the prospect. Her Fitz, who would be broken by how afraid she is. It’s better to get it all out in the open now, she thinks. He’ll remember this once they pull him out, but she won’t have had to tell him, not directly. Maybe this is for the best.

It’s for the best, she tells herself, even as a tear spills down her cheek, then another, and another, even as she takes a sharp inhale, even as she’s sure she’s shaking enough that he notices. “He stabbed me,” she says, willing her voice not to choke. “And bludgeoned me over the head. And tried to strangle me. All- All while trying to convince me that he was on my side. In Fitz’s voice. With Fitz’s face. Everything, down to his mannerisms. It was exact. A perfect copy. But he did all that.”

Fitz shifts, and on instinct alone she almost jumps off the bed. But he just moves so he’s sitting on the floor between the two beds. Not closer to her, just lower. As soon as her heart stops racing, she thinks she’ll appreciate it.

He’s not looking at her, but she can’t help but watch him closely. Out of fear, or nerves. It’s not that she thinks he’ll do anything, it’s just- It’s too close. She’s been tricked before.

“I’m surprised you’re even willing to talk to me,” he says, messing absentmindedly with the tassels on his scarf.

“It wasn’t you,” she replies, wiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks, though more tears just take their place.

“Still it- it had my face, yeah? My voice. And it did some pretty traumatic shit—”

“I’m not traumatized,” she immediately defends, combative.

“Not saying you are,” he shoots back. “Just that- you know. No one would blame you for it. _I_ wouldn’t blame you for it.” He peers up at her. “If you were.”

She sniffles, lips twisting, and looks away. “I’ve been through worse. This really shouldn’t be affecting me so much.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Worse than an evil robot version of your boyfriend attacking you?”

She huffs a bitter laugh. “Things you wouldn’t even believe.” She lets her eyes wander over the room aimlessly, but they end up landing back on him, on the floor, trying to make himself look small. Just for her benefit. (She wonders if he’s ever tried to make himself look small in his life.) “And, anyway, don’t really have time to be traumatized, do I? Got a world to save, and all that.”

He chews on his bottom lip, then seems to catch himself, and stops. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you.”

She looks away, down at her wringing hands.

“I mean I- I’d be scared.”

She almost rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better.”

“No, I would. I—”

She glances back over at him, and he looks like he’s battling with himself; eyebrows drawn, lips pressed firmly together.

“My dad,” he starts, and her heart stops in time, “he- ah- wasn’t very nice to me. As a kid. Never hit me or anything, nothing like that, just- just said things. The kind of things a father shouldn’t say. But then I started building things, and it was like that—” He snaps. “Like a lightbulb turning on, he changed. Acted all nice. Started grooming me to take a position he never amounted to. But … You want to know a secret?”

Slowly, she nods.

His lips draw into a sad smile. “I’m still scared of him. Deep down. Still just that scared kid, even to this day. So what you went through?” He lets out a low whistle. “Can’t even imagine.”

She squeezes her hands together as tightly as she can, feeling the pressure in each one of her fingers. She looks away, looks back, looks away again. “You’re nothing like him,” she tells him, staring at the window drapes. “Or that’s what I thought, anyway, when I first met you. I thought, ‘this can’t possibly be Fitz. My Fitz’. And you’re not. Not really, but- You are, also. You’re still him. Different and not quite, all at the same time.”

He leans his head back on the bed behind him, watching her gently. “That a good thing?”

“Yeah,” she admits. “It is. I think … I think I need a little different, right now.”

He nods, rolling his head to look up at the ceiling. “Happy to oblige.”

“And I can’t promise …”

He glances back at her. “I’m not asking you to promise anything.”

“It’s just- That face. You’ve got that face, and every time I see it I just think- I think of _it_ , and I shouldn’t, because I’ve known Fitz for over ten years now, so that one time, that one incident, shouldn’t override all of that. But every time I see you, I can’t help but remember. It’s too—”

“Fresh?” he finishes, and she nods.

“Yeah.”

“I understand.” He huffs out a sigh. “And hey, your Fitz—the- the _real_ Fitz—when he wakes up, he’ll understand too, yeah? If he’s as good as you say he is, he’ll understand.”

“I hope.”

“He will.”

He sounds convinced. But before she can reply, the water shuts off in the bathroom, and he—slowly, carefully, not making any sudden movements—scoots back onto the bed.

The door swings open, and Daisy emerges in a cloud of steam, one towel wrapped around her waist, another in her hair.

“Were you kids good while I was gone?” she asks, almost in a sing song, but then she takes in Jemma’s all too familiar, red-rimmed eyes, and immediately drops to the bed beside her, grabbing up her hand. “Hey, you okay?” She turns a glare on Fitz. “What did you say to her?”

“It wasn’t him,” Jemma says, squeezing Daisy’s hand. “He was fine, really. Just … thinking about things.”

Reluctantly, Daisy turns her gaze back to Jemma. “Anything you want to talk about?”

Jemma gives a tight smile. “Maybe later.”

“Okay.” Daisy rubs her thumb over the back of Jemma’s hand, watching her gently.

“It’s getting late,” Fitz says, drawing their attention. “I should get going.” He stands off the bed (getting off on the opposite side to Jemma), but then hovers by the door.

“Are you coming back tomorrow?” Daisy asks.

“Do you want me back?” He’s not looking at Daisy, though. He’s looking right at Jemma. Earnestly, a little shy.

She thinks about it for a moment, swallows hard. But then she nods. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then I’ll be back.” Simple as that.

And it’s not simple, Jemma thinks, none of this is. But they’re trying. They’re all trying. She’s still deep in thought as Fitz leaves, and as Daisy changes into a pair of pajamas, tossing another pair into Jemma’s lap. Jemma gets dressed mechanically, but it’s deliberate when she gets into the bed with Daisy, instead of the other one, the one Fitz had been in. Daisy doesn’t question it, just snuggles up behind her.

“You two were really okay?” Daisy asks, nose pressed into Jemma’s shoulder blade.

“No,” Jemma admits honestly. “But we’re going to get there.”

Of that she has no doubt. Because they do. Across any distance, in any universe. No matter what’s gone on between them. It’ll take time, and patience, and she knows it’s going to be hard, and it’ll hurt, but- They’ll get there. If there’s one thing she’s sure of, it’s that.


End file.
